7

I like to use the Draw feature in OneNote to highlight portions of text, draw dividing lines between sections of text, draw arrows that point to words, etc.

The problem is that these graphics are not anchored to the text. If you insert text, the graphics do not move with the text they were originally draw next to.

I have tried finding a way to anchor the graphics, but I have not been able to. Is it possible to anchor graphics, and if so, how?

2

4 Answers 4

1

I thought they would let you group it together, but I must be confusing myself with Word

Your best bet is to cut and paste the drawing in to the text container as a picture.

2

This is what you got to do:

  1. Do the drawing and select all the strokes
  2. Group the whole thing (press Ctrl+W)
  3. Copy and paste it again somewhere else in the page, just press the keys, don't click anywhere else in the doc
  4. Press Enter (once or twice)
  5. This will enclose the Drawing in a text bubble/square whatever you wanna call it
  6. Now copy the drawing again
  7. Paste it wherever you want inside the paragraph you are working on
  8. Now it's anchored inline with the text
2
  • How do I "group the whole thing"? When I select the graphics, I do not see any "Group" option in the context menu (I see Cut, Copy, Delete, Order, Rotate, and Treat Selected Ink As.
    – Jay Elston
    Jul 12, 2018 at 22:48
  • I don't know where the menu item can be found, but at least the shortcuts Ctrl+W for grouping and Ctrl+H for ungrouping work.
    – Stephan
    May 25, 2023 at 15:25
0

Similar to this answer, which in my testing has extraneous steps, I found the closest I could get was to, within OneNote, Select/Cut/position(cursor or click)/Paste the image where you want within text where you want. On Windows OneNote 2016, Desktop version at least, this:

  1. DOES indeed result in the image being "anchored" at that insertion point, but
  2. wraps the surrounding text using the "Top and Bottom" effect available in other Office apps, left-justifying the image on a new line with text before the image insertion point above and text on a new line after the inserted image below.

This does solve the original question since:

  1. It does anchor the image object at the pasted insertion point and stays with the text thereafter, and
  2. The OP didn't specify if the object should also remain and wrap inline behaving as if it were a character.

Minimum Steps

Important: Do not shortcut this by attempting to copy your clipboard content from another program and directly pasting that at your insert point. In my testing, the image object must first exist in OneNote (you can paste it there from another program first) and then be copied to the clipboard from OneNote as below. My attempts to copy from another program, such as Paint, and directly paste that into OneNote at my insertion point DID NOT result in the desired anchoring.

All steps using your favorite technique (click/menu or cursor/keyboard):

  1. If the target image is not already within OneNote, create/insert/paste the target anywhere within OneNote where it's convenient. It will be effectively "moved" from there when completed.
  2. Select only the target image object, nothing else.
  3. Cut the selected object (or Copy, then Delete).
  4. Move/reposition the cursor to your desired insertion point.
  5. Paste.

At this point, the image should be anchored to the text at the insertion point with the image starting on a new line followed by (on a subsequent new line) any characters after the insertion point.


My Original Problem

I was originally trying to solve 2 anchoring issues that are closely related to the original question:

  1. [Resolved] Pasting an image into a numbered list (a step-by-step procedure I was writing) was assigning the image (in my case copied from an external program, Paint) its own new number in the list when I was trying to attach a supporting image to a specific numbered item in the list. There was no obvious way to delete the newly assigned number (e.g. Backspace deleted the image instead) short of ending that list and starting over. For some reason, using my steps and copying the image again except this time from within OneNote and inserting it at the end of a specific number item worked and kept the image together with the intended line. Although, any text afterwards was assigned a new list item number, easily rectified by a simple Backspace.
  2. [Unresolved] Inserting, as an inline character, an image of a icon/symbol that is not available in any standard character set. [Work-around] Instead, I created a graphic that incorporated the example including my graphic symbol so that (now correctly anchored) image exemplified the complete solution.

This solution was close enough for my purposes and solves at least one of the anchoring problems I was having: keeping an image anchored to a list item.


Platform

All of the above was tested on Windows OneNote 2016 for desktop 32-bit (installed as part of Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2016) on Windows 10 20H2 64-bit.

I do not know how this applies to other OneNote editions, including (but not limited to):

  • OneNote UWP (Microsoft Store)
  • OneNote Web
  • OneNote Android App
  • OneNote iOS App
  • Other OneNote/Office Editions/Platforms/Versions
0

I like to draw boxes around sections of text as well, and it's frustrating that the drawn frame doesn't stick with the text. Adding more text above pushes the original text down, below the drawn outline. So I take a screenshot of the desired section (print screen or use the snipping tool), edit if desired (I use IrfanView to clip out just the section I want), then paste it back in as an image. This is an OK workaround. If you have links in your original text, they won't be live in the snipped/pasted version. Just one drawback of this method.

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .